This book is a comprehensive study on India's North East where violence, development and natural disasters that lead to eviction and displacement of `citizens` within a country produce more Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) than refugees. Dwelling upon this debate, the book discusses the two major sources of displacement, conflict and development, and presents a compendium of case studies drawn from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Tripura—the four worst-affected states of the region. The Introduction to the book highlights the silenced aspects of displacement, drawing upon the implications of the case studies presented and bringing them to the centre of any future theoretical enquiry into the society and politics of the region.

Blisters on their Feet: Tales of Internally Displaced Persons in India's North East provides contrasting perspectives on what is often considered a simple answer to displacement, and views the phenomenon as a logical culmination of a package of policies initiated and undertaken in the region, particularly in the age of globalization. The case studies display rare insight, human rights sensitivity and commitment, sans any theoretical pretensions.

The book serves as a useful key in placing the North East in the newly emergent discourse on displacement and brings it to the forefront of the public agenda. It offers important insights for policy makers and analysts, research scholars, human rights activists, lawyers, developmental specialists, students and socially concerned citizens.

Conflict and Displacement: A Case Study of the Election Violence in 1983

Jyotirmay Jana Makiko Kimura

The Displaced Santhals of Western Assam

Biswajit Chakrabarty

IDPs of Western Assam: A Study of Conflict-Induced Displacement

Subhas Barman

Nobody`s People: Muslim IDPs of Western Assam

Uddipana Goswami

The Displaced Reangs of Hailakandi District

Abdul Mannan Mazumdar and Bornali Bhattacharjee

III. MANIPUR

Kuki-Naga Conflict and its Impact on the Zeliangrong People

K Gailangam

A Study of Ethnic Conflicts in the Hills, 1992-1993

Ksh Bimola Devi

IDPs of Manipur Hills

Koijam Shethajit

A Case Study of the May 1993 Riot Victims of Purum Pangaltabi

S Mangi Singh

A Note on the Internally Displaced Persons

R K Ranjan Singh

IDPs and the Problems of their Education

L Leiren Singh

IV. TRIPURA

Internally Displaced Persons in Tripura: Past and Present

Mahadev Chakravarti

Development and Displacement: A Case Study of the IDPs

Satyadeo Poddar

Gumti Hydel Project and the Displaced Persons

Malaya Banerjee

Landownership and Occupational Patterns of IDPs (1999-2001): A Case Study

Ruma Sahu and Amitabha Sinha

Internal Displacement: A Man-made Tragedy

Sukhendu Debbarma

The Case of Urabari Mohanpur Block

Chandrika Basu Majumder

V. THE NORTH EAST

Birth of a Problem

Sudhir Kumar Singh and Sristidhar Dutta

Paradigm of Development: A Critique

Deepak Mishra

Waiting for Elusive Resettlement and Rehabilitation?

Monirul Hussain

Challenges Ahead

Subir Bhaumik

Development, Displacement, and the Right to Life

Walter Fernandes and Sanjay Barbora

Index

"This book is an important addition to the growing critical scholarship on postcolonial North East India. Based on a series of workshops organized by the Indian Council of Social Science Research-North Eastern Regional Center, it examines the disjunctures in global, national and local policy frameworks and categories that determine the lives andstatus of internally displaced poeple in North East India."

Urmitapa Dutta

University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign

The volume succeeds in conveying the severity and complexity of the problem of internal displacement in the region, which is often overlooked in the obsession with ‘security concerns’ or the ‘underdevelopment-insurgency nexus’ in discussions on the North-East. The fairly detailed factual accounts, which provide considerable insights into the problems of the region, can sensitize policy-makers to the implications of displacement for peace and development interventions.

ASCI Journal of Management

This book gives snapshots and detailed case studies of the tales of internally displaced peoples in the North East of India… [The book is] distinct from previous studies due to the emphasis placed on a ‘rights based’ approach to displacement, where communities, irrespective of their ethnic, religious or linguistic identity, should be considered as the collective disenfranchised and displaced communities…. The book is a valuable contribution to the study of the topic in the region.